ham

Noun (1)

ham (countable and uncountable, plural hams)

1. The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
2. (countable) A thigh and/or buttock of a hog slaughtered for meat; (occasionally) the corresponding cut from some other animal.
   • "I'll have you so your hams will stand out like horse's shanks!" de declared.1931, Ion L. Idriess, Lasseter's Last Ride, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 165
3. (uncountable) Meat from the thigh and/or buttock of a hog cured for food.
   • a little piece of ham for the cat
   • She put some ham in the beans and cut up some sweet potatoes to boil.2012, Audra Lilly Griffeth, A King's Daughter, →ISBN
4. The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
5. (Internet, informal, uncommon) Electronic mail that is wanted; email that is not spam or junk mail.

   Synonyms:

   ham e-mail

   Antonyms:

   spam, junk mail

Noun (2)

ham (plural hams)

1. An overacting or amateurish performer; an actor with an especially showy or exaggerated style.
   • Writing in The New Yorker in 2005, James Wood praised Mr. McCarthy as “a colossally gifted writer” and “one of the great hams of American prose, who delights in producing a histrionic rhetoric that brilliantly ventriloquizes the King James Bible, Shakespearean and Jacobean tragedy, Melville...2023 June 13, Dwight Garner, quoting James Wood, “Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms:

   hambone, hamfatter, overactor, tear-cat

2. An amateur radio operator.

   Synonyms:

   radio amateur

Verb

ham (third-person singular simple present hams, present participle hamming, simple past and past participle hammed)

1. To overact; to act with exaggerated emotions.
   • Near-synonym: camp it up

   Synonyms:

   ham it up, chew the scenery, melodramatize, overact, tear a cat, camp it up

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Ham

IPA/hæm/

Ham (countable and uncountable, plural Hams)

1. A surname.
2. A suburb and ward in Plymouth, Devon, England (OS grid ref SX4657).
3. A small village in Ham and Stone parish, Stroud district, Gloucestershire, England (OS grid ref ST6898).
4. A suburban area in the borough of Richmond upon Thames and borough of Kingston upon Thames, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ1771).
5. Two districts (East Ham and West Ham) in borough of Newham, Greater London.
6. A hamlet in Northbourne parish, Dover district, Kent, England (OS grid ref TR3254).
7. A small village and civil parish in eastern Wiltshire, England, south of Hungerford, West Berkshire (OS grid ref SU3363).
8. A village in Caithness, Highland council area, Scotland (OS grid ref ND2373)

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Ham

IPA/hæm/

Ham

1. A son of Noah and the brother of Japheth and Shem.

Noun (3) capitalized: HAM

HAM

1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of his apostolic majesty, the title given to a number of historical kings of Hungary.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: HAM

HAM

1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Hold-And-Modify, a display mode of the Commodore Amiga computer, allowing for a large number of colours on screen.

Adverb capitalized: HAM

HAM

1. (abbreviation, initialism, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Initialism of hard as a motherfucker, extremely hard, extremely intensely, crazily.